We move through Warsaw like ghosts through a graveyard.
Jakub leads, his knowledge of the city invaluable even with half of it reduced to rubble.
He knows which streets are too exposed, which buildings are structurally sound enough to provide cover, where German positions were last seen.
The three remaining soldiers—Thompson, a Brit named Walsh, and a Canadian kid who barely speaks—follow in single file.
I take rear guard, rifle ready, watching for threats from behind.
We pass scenes that will haunt me:
A pharmacy with its front blown out, medicine scattered across the street, a pharmacist lying dead in the doorway with their hand outstretched toward pills they'll never reach.
A school bus on its side, windows shattered, small shoes scattered on the pavement.
An elderly man sitting in a chair in the middle of the street, staring at nothing, covered in dust so thick he looks like a statue.
Dead or in shock, impossible to tell from distance.
We don't stop to check.
"Don't look too long," Jakub says without turning around.
"You look too long at Warsaw dying, it kills something in you too."
But I can't help looking.
This is what war does to cities.
To people.
To the world.
And somewhere in my fragmented memories, I know I've seen it before.
Different cities.
Different wars.
Same fundamental horror.
---
The basement is accessed through a collapsed bakery.
The smell of old bread still lingers under the smoke and dust—a ghost of normalcy haunting a place where normal died days ago.
Jakub leads us down stone steps into darkness.
"Marek! It's Jakub! I'm bringing friends!"
Movement in the shadows.
Weapons raised.
Then a voice, wary: "Jakub? We thought you were dead."
"Not yet. Got shot, but Amerykanin patched me up."
He steps aside, revealing us.
"These are British and American volunteers. Here to help."
"Help us lose slower?"
But the voice—Marek, presumably—lowers his weapon.
A flashlight clicks on, illuminating a stocky man in his forties, civilian clothes torn and bloodstained.
"Welcome to the last free basement in Warsaw. Don't get comfortable."
The basement is packed.
Not thirty fighters—maybe twenty, and that's counting the walking wounded.
Mix of Polish military, civilians with hunting rifles, a few teenagers who shouldn't be old enough to hold weapons but have the same haunted eyes as everyone else.
They've barricaded the entrances, turned the basement into a miniature fortress.
Limited ammunition.
Less food.
Even less hope.
Thompson surveys the space.
"What's the tactical situation?"
"The tactical situation," Marek says, "is that Poland is finished. Warsaw will fall. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. We're just making the Germans pay for every meter."
He lights a cigarette, offers the pack around.
"You want to help? Help us hold until civilians can evacuate. Then help us die with dignity."
"Or," Jakub says, settling against the wall, "help us kill enough Germans that they remember Warsaw wasn't free. Was taken."
Marek nods.
"Or that."
---
We spend the rest of the day fortifying the position.
Thompson and Walsh work on the barricades, reinforcing weak points.
The Canadian kid—his name is Pierre, I finally learn—helps distribute ammunition, making sure everyone knows their firing lanes.
I work with Jakub despite his shoulder wound.
He shows me the defensive setup, points out sight lines, explains the pattern of German attacks.
"They come in waves," he says.
"Armor first, trying to break through. Then infantry to hold. If we stop the first wave, they pull back and hit us with artillery. If we don't stop it, we die quickly."
He shrugs.
"Either way, we die. Question is how much German blood we spill first."
"You always this cheerful?"
"Always this honest."
He lights a cigarette with his good hand, winces as the movement pulls his shoulder.
"You want cheerful? Wrong war, młody."
"What's that mean? Młody?"
"Young one. Little one."
He studies me.
"You are young, yes? Eighteen? Nineteen?"
"Nineteen next month."
"So young."
He shakes his head.
"At nineteen, I was working in factory. Father wanted me to be engineer. Now I'm shooting Germans from basements."
He exhales smoke.
"War changes plans."
"You have family?" I ask.
His expression shifts—something painful crossing his face before he buries it.
"Wife. Two children. Evacuated before the siege. If they made it out, they're in the countryside somewhere. Safe, maybe."
He doesn't sound convinced.
"If they didn't make it..."
He doesn't finish.
I don't know what to say.
Sorry feels inadequate.
Hope feels dishonest.
So I just sit with him in silence, sharing his cigarette, watching the basement full of people waiting to die.
---
The attack comes at sunset.